Technical Field
The present invention relates to a technology for the use of cores of a multi-core CPU.
Background Art
Recent years have seen the widespread use of Central Processing Units (CPUs) each of which has a plurality of cores. Such a CPU is called a multi-core CPU.
The multi-core CPU causes the cores to execute programs different from one another. The multi-core CPU also distributes processes based on one program to the cores for execution.
Examples of an image forming apparatus using such a multi-core CPU include an image forming apparatus having the configuration as follows. The image forming apparatus is an image forming apparatus in which a drawing processing means performs drawing processing for each region of a page. The image forming apparatus includes: a print data storing means for storing print data; a drawing instruction generating means for analyzing the print data to generate drawing instruction data in which a drawing instruction of an object serving as a drawing object is described in each page; an optimization information creating means for analyzing the print data in parallel with the drawing instruction generating means to create optimization information for determining a region taken by the drawing processing means; an intermediate data storing means for storing the drawing instruction data and the optimization information; and the drawing processing means for determining the region to be taken based on the optimization information to perform drawing processing of the drawing instruction data for each region (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2012-071544).
Further, heterogeneous CPUs with cores different in computing performance become popular. The number of products mounting a heterogeneous CPU thereon is expected to increase in the future.
Devices such as Multi-Functional Peripherals (MFPs) often perform processes in parallel. It is thus advantageous to mount a multi-core CPU onto an MFP.
As discussed above, there has been proposed the technology for using a homogeneous CPU efficiently. The technology, however, does not always increase the efficiency of the use of a heterogeneous CPU.